A Love Letter To My Behind

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Dara Chadwick, author of the forthcoming book, “You’d Be So Pretty If…Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies–Even When We Don’t Love Our Own” She’s got a great blog that we encourage you to check out. Here’s Dara’s “Love Letter to My Behind”:

On Monday, I wrote about turning 41 and reflecting on the value of celebrating not only the milestones in our lives, but our good health, too. I mentioned a fellow writer who underwent a double mastectomy yesterday at the age of 38. If you do nothing else today, please take a moment to read her poignant blog post about saying goodbye to her breasts. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

Pretty powerful, don’t you think?

Since I first read Catherine’s post, I can’t stop thinking about the time I’ve spent wishing this or that were different on my own body. It’s a very common, very real experience for most of the women I know. It goes a little something like this: We focus on our “flaw” (or, more likely, “flaws”) to the extent that we not only don’t appreciate the important things like our bodies’ good health, but we fail to appreciate what we like about ourselves. Those “imperfections” become our focus, and some of us spend a significant portion of our lives trying to change or hide them.

Today, I challenge all my readers to celebrate their bodies’ “imperfections.” That’s right, I said celebrate. Find three nice things to say about that body part you haven’t always loved. While you don’t have to do it publicly, I’ll start the challenge by sharing that I haven’t always appreciated my backside. With that said, here’s my little love letter to my behind:

1. You sure can fill out a pair of jeans nicely.

2. You respond really well to exercise; lunges have made you firm and round.

3. You keep me nice and comfy during long hours of sitting at softball and baseball games.

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